Familiar face calms stressed-out sheep.Much as people do, sheep in troubled times seem to appreciate the sight of a familiar face, a new study of sheep cognition cognition Act or process of knowing. Cognition includes every mental process that may be described as an experience of knowing (including perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning), as distinguished from an experience of feeling or of willing. reveals. Earlier research had shown that sheep can recognize individual faces, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Keith Kendrick of the Babraham Institute The Babraham Institute is an independent charitable life sciences institute undertaking research in basic cell and molecular biology. It is sponsored by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and is based in Babraham, Cambridgeshire, England. in Cambridge, England. In the new work, she and her colleagues are using the animals to study brain activity during negative experiences. The researchers removed individual sheep from the flock for 30-minute stretches and monitored bleating bleat n. 1. a. The characteristic cry of a goat or sheep. b. A sound similar to this cry. 2. A whining, feeble complaint. v. bleat·ed, bleat·ing, bleats v. , body movement, increased heart rate, and other signs of stress. Sheep penned with a portrait of a white triangle showed more stress responses than did sheep confined with a portrait of a sheep face. A goat portrait didn't work as well as the sheep face did but beat out the white triangle as a stress reducer. Also, the sheep, appear to use their right brain hemisphere during negative emotional experiences, just as people do, the researchers report in the Oct. 7 Proceedings of the Royal Society Proceedings of the Royal Society is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society of London. Today, the Royal Society publishes two proceeding series:
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